CELEBRITY
Taylor Swift’s lead guitarist Paul Sidoti will lead the #Browns out of the tunnel prior to kickoff today vs Kansas City. Sidoti is a Cleveland native and has performed here before.
You would think, one week after wrapping up the biggest concert tour in decades, that Taylor Swift’s musicians would be kicking back, relaxing and basking in the post-tour glow.
But Swift’s longtime guitarist, Paul Sidoti, hasn’t put away his guitar quite yet. The Ohio native was set to perform at the Chiefs-Browns game Sunday in Cleveland.
He practiced Saturday at Huntington Bank Field, prepping to play “Hells Bells” by AC/DC when the Browns run out of the tunnel and onto the field before the game.
Swift fans who saw videos of his rehearsal online took it as a sign that Swift herself would be at the game in boyfriend Travis Kelce’s old stomping grounds.
Bernie Kosar — who also knows Swift — posted videos of Sidoti practicing. The former Browns Pro Bowl quarterback met Swift at Travis Kelce’s house in the Northland last fall when she was in town for a game.
Sidoti, who is from Strongsville, Ohio, has been Swift’s lead guitarist and backup vocalist since 2007.
Swift called him “one of my favorite people in the whole world” before playing in Cleveland in 2009. “When we hired him, it was because he’s an incredible guitar player. But he also has these amazing bottom vocals.”
In August, as the Eras Tour wrapped up its European leg, Sidoti wrote about the “incredible, fun-filled, memorable summer in Europe.”
The summer of 2024 will go down as the most rewarding, remarkable experience in my professional career as a musician,” he wrote, along with posting photos from the tour.
“The record-breaking numbers this tour has generated on a global scale will never be matched and to be a small part of it is truly humbling,” the father of two wrote. “Years from now I’ll be able to tell my kids what their dad was part of and that brings me such joy and happiness.”